Week 2 - Wordle Ideas

​After you have experienced creating a WORDLE, post a comment about anything you have observed about Wordle or your ideas for how you might use it instructionally. See the examples provided below. When you are ready to post your thoughts about Wordle, remember to click on EDIT THIS PAGE at the top right, then click in the next available row in the table to type your name and your one sentence idea or thought about Wordle.
If all the rows have been used, click in the last row and then click on the table icon (). Then, choose Row, Add Row, Add below to add another row for your entry.

BE SURE TO SAVE! Revisit this page to see what others have posted-save good ideas to use in your classroom!

Participant Name	Ideas about using a Web 2.0 Technology like Wordle
Donna Pepper	I like the way words that I have used more than once appear larger since it helps me get a visual of the "big ideas" in my writing.
Cheryl Ward	Paste in the content of a famous speech and see if students know the speech, study the words used most frequently, is that why the speech was famous?
Keith Ahearn	I created a Wordle using Margaret Chase Smith's speech called the "Declaration of Conscience." She delivered this speech on the floor on of the Senate against Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist Red Scare. The main ideas of her speech jump out at students. I think that this type of technology allows for thought prevoking discussions around the salient points of speeches before students dig into greater depth and meaning. I love Margaret Chase Smith because I grew up in Maine where she was an icon there.
Patrick Griffis	Wordle is nice in that it creates a visual on the words or main ideas of a certain subject and the students can use it to be creative and still show why and how ideas can be important and a visual can help this.
Rachel Neugebauer	I have never visited this site before, I find it very interesting. I think students would really enjoy using this for a visual representation. I can also see using this for main ideas or themes in writing. I think this would be great for students to use in poetry as well.
Nevin Jenkins	This was my first time also. At first I did not understand the significance because some of the participants in the gallery put up some weird stuff. But then after playing with it and seeing how some people up above pasted in a speech, I decided to use Malcolm X's speech from Mecca. Using Wordle had an immediate impact on my psyche because the words that he used most were larger. What I would like to do is transcribe a teacher talking to the class and then paste that text into Wordle. How large would "Sit down" or "Stop It" or "Stop Talking" be? (Smile)
Ann Pesta	I had a ball with Wordle. I played with the color options, the display of the words...horizontal or vertical or half and half. I used one of my comments from a forum to make the wordle I used. I think this would be a fun thing to use for science notes, lab conclusions, even a paragraph from a text book just to see what happens. I want to use this to make a t-shirt for our trip to Cedar Point for science day next year.
Martin Danial	So Wordle seems to be an great tool to visually appeal to students while still communicating and sending a message about the information presented. The ability to engage students in another mode (primarily visually) can play a major role in working with the diverse learning styles of students.
Kevin Holcomb	Wordle seems best fit for language arts. Being a math teacher, I suppose I could print out a list of new definitions, before starting each chapter. I.E. when starting the section on geometry, I could provide students with key terms and concepts for Ch 7 and 8, using the wordle poster. Students could then search through the poster and define all terms.
Brian Filiatreau	I think Wordle could be a great motivational tool with my special ed kids. I find working with vocabulary with the is like pulling teeth. This would be a very cool tool to use to help keep them engaged while giving the some creative freedom. Aside from this I could use this for a variety of displays or presentations on books. Good site, it was my first time.
Brian Nehlsen	Wordle could be used to have students brainstorm topics. It would be interesting to see if you combined the brainstorms of all classes to see what the more common ideas are. We could also use Wordle to see which words are most used on OAA Tests!! We could simply copy and paste these into wordle. This would help with vocab!
Brittany Beutel	Wordle is very cool. I think this is a neat tool for anyone, but subjects like english and social studies could really go to town with this. That OAA vocab idea would be excellent!
Matt Mihalyov	Wordle seems so simple to me that it surprises me how visually powerful it appears. I think students would find this appealing in the same way. It's not a tool that is going to magically teach the students the content, but it would be a very good way to encourage discussion. The visual aspect is really intriguing.
Andre Bruwer	Wordle was new to me but i had great fun using it. As a math teacher i find myself limited to what i might use it for. I am thinking about linking it to my moodle page and getting students to collectivly add words to it over a period of time while we are working on a particluar secion. Then at the end we'll see what jumps out. Bigger words will jump out as key for that section.....mmm i see a class T-shirt in the making here :-)
Vicki Tomasheski	I loved playing around with this and can definitely find use for this is in classroom situations. I loved rotating and changing the format of collected words. It really is a cool visual... graffiti! Might be a neat activity for me to introduce right now...end of year memory word collage!
Amy Miller	I was taking different speeches of various people and putting them into Wordle to see what the main messages were...what stood out...I used MLK's "I Have a Dream" and a speech by Adolf Hitler just to see what stood out. I think it would be interesting to study the speeches of a person and see if the message changed over time and then talk about WHY it changed. What was going on at that time. It would be interesting to have students take an essay or some writing piece and copy and paste into Wordle. The student could determine if that is the message they want or if they need to edit it.....
Adriana Greenlief	I had some thoughts about using Wordle for instruction. Wordle could be used to activate prior knowledge or preview a topic. I also think it would definitely be a different way to display vocabulary or for students to study vocabulary. Students could use wordle to complete reflections on learning. As a review, wordle could be used for students or by students.
Britni Theofilos	I would love to use this for difficult science terms and have students create a wordle that includes the difficult science term and as many other words that they can find that would relate the the main term.
Doug Sudomir	Wordle could be a good tool when working with students on writing skills. If a student has a habit of using the same words over and over again it could be a good way for them to easily see which words they might want to work on replacing. I think this could help to encourage them to expand their written vocabulary.
Phil Hodanbosi	Wordle could be a great tool in the math class to help students grasp vocabulary terms. I copied and pasted the Gettysburg Address into the site and found the word "dedicated" to be most prevalent. The software acts as a graphic organizer of thoughts and some students process information more easily in this manner.
Sean Wheeler	I love to use Wordle as a pre-reading activity. This year, I pasted the entire text of Romeo and Juliet into a Wordle and then had students discuss what themes might be important in the text based upon the frequent use of key words. This worked very well and was a great discussion starter. I've also taken whole class essay responses on a given topic, thrown them all into Wordle at once, and we've discussed what threads tend to run throughout all of their answers. I really like that Wordle can accomodate lots of text, as I think this can become a really cool analytical tool.
Jon Mockbee GHMS	Every day on my bulletin board, and projected on my screen I have the objectives posted that we are going to work on today. Wordle would be an interesting tool to post the objectives so that the students can see what they are expected to know by the end of a lesson. By the way, does anyone know how to spell check in wikki?
Katie Gerard	Wordle is really a creative and fun way to use specific or random vocabulary. I actually cut and pasted part of the TECH. Standards. After I created the wordle, I played with it some more adding colors, changing fonts, word directions, etc. After reading Sean's response, I look forward to using it next year in my LAX class for a pre-reading activity.
Karen Wheeler Lakewood	I'm drawing a blank on how to use this in a math class. I search the web for some ideas and they were not that impressive or useful. I love this tool in other subject areas. I would really appreciate a useful math example.
Ken Kozar Lakewood	I have used Wordle on several occasions. I often take student forums and create wordles. I have also used them to create T-shirts for an annual HIV / AIDS Awareness Day. Check out the Forum Wordle here!
Tricia Mencin	At the beginning of this week, I was not sure how I would use this with upper level math classes. Then I had my statistics classess watch a video on a case study about drug development and FDA approval. I had the students list all the 'vocab' from the year they recognized. It was fun playing around with these and now I can use it as an introduction to the vocabulary next year.
Justin Gates U. L. Light MS	I think wordles would be great to summarize the main ideas of a meeting. They could be used with staff and students alike. I think they could also be used in mission and vision statement generation or may even become vision statements of the future. I see the PTA being able to use these as well.
Jim Hull	I am constantly amazed at what is out there to engage not only students but educators as well. I plan on presenting Wordle to our teachers and let their own creativity be their guide. Sharing examples of how other teachers have used Wordle should stimulate those creative energies.
Shelly Habegger Highland MS	I see this could be used as a prereading acitivty to determine vocabulary. Before reading the selection Wordle it to see if the most frequent words can be understaood by all
Amanda Recker Garfield Heights Middle School	Wordle could be an excellent and effective tool for science vocabulary. It would also be effective in highlighting key words in each unit in an engaging and creative way that students could remember. I will use it at the beginning of the year for students to create a wordle to tell me what words they would use to describe a successful student.
Chrystal Cotner ULL Middle School	I like the idea of using the wordles for vocabulary. I mentioned on the other wiki that using it for the cover sheet for a report is really a great idea. I also like the idea of putting short stories that are accessible by internet on it and posting it on a screen so the kids can use it as a prereading activity to "guess" what a story is about based on words that are emphasized. This is a similar idea to Shelley Habeggars above, but I think a little bit of a twist.
Tara Reis Principal Highland MS Barberton	I am so jealous!!! I was a LA teacher before becoming an administrator and I can see so many uses for Wordle. This could be used in editing because students need so much help in identifying bland and repetitive language and using greater description. I really liked the picture Ken Kozer posted above. This could be used for fundraisers or to identify clubs - think of the words NJHS or peer mediators would fnd highlighted in a written description of their purposes. So many positive messages to display on posters and t-shirts!
Melissa Jacot Careers for Teaching Maple Heights	I think I would use this as a fun way to brainstorm ideas at the beginning of a unit or to summarize what was taught that day. Using description/summation of what they just read is something I could try.
Reza Mohasses- Science Teacher at Warrensville Heights High School	I also believe that the aspect of literacy which is knowing the terms of the content and their meaning is important not only for standardized test preparation but also for being able to follow along within lesson units (chapters and so on) well and make teaching an easier task for us teachers as a result. I think wordle does make this task of getting the students at least exposed to vocabulary better. They can search the vocabs and then look it up. What we are doing here is to enable the visual learners to also get into the mix which would actually include me! Many students are visual learners at some level so this technology can make a difference!
Michael Zaletel Tech Coach Bedford High School	I enjoyed using Wordle with a speech, several different documents, and vocabulary word lists from our new textbook software. This will be a quick and easy tool for use in a variety of ways in all subjects. Great for those visual learners in our classrooms!
Alison Cox English Teacher Bedford HS	Though I've never used Wordle with my students, I've often thought it would be cool to use one for comparing two pieces of literature or poetry to see if there are really are commonalities. It might be a cool test question too - what piece is this, based on the contents of the Wordle. It's a great tool!
Jim Jakubowski, Warrensville Hts HS, Science Teacher	Wordle would be a terrific tool to help students, especially those visual learners, to focus on the key terms and phrases in any chapter from a textbook. Seeing any term in a LARGE font would signal that the term was cited often in the reading, so clearly that is a term that they should learn. Do note that there is a great video on using Advanced Wordle at http://cleversomeday.wordpress.com.
Bill Wagner, LHS principal	I LOVE the Wordle tool. I can certainly see the applications to a book study, essay review, lecture notes, meeting minutes... I love the way it pulls out the most frequent words and how it focuses attention on the key items... It would be interesting to apply it to our student and staff handbooks and see what jumps out!
Ellen Dies Tech teacher, U. L. Light Middle School	What a great tool to use to: get to know a student (They choose things that represent them) study terms for any subject (see if they can identify all the terms and define them) define a club and what it stands for...) Can be used in every subject area.
Heather Keister Bedford High, Science Teacher	I see a few ways to effectively use Wordle in my chemistry classroom. First, at the end of a chapter, when preparing for a test, I think it would be very interesting to have each student put ~10 things (terms, ideas, etc) they feel are the most important to know. Students would have to submit them to me prior to the review, and I would assemble a Wordle to show the entire class what they created. I could use this a great springboard for students to see what they need to make sure they study, and bring attention to something they may have missed. Also, I have some of my classes write papers on different topics. It would be very interesting to make a Wordle based on their papers, to see the commonalities between them.

Bob Rutkowski, Bedford High School Administrator
I got on the Woordle site and began playing using key words and phrases that might be of use during our upcoming 9th grade orientation. I was unable to be successful due to a plug-in feature that I am still trying to figure out, however, I love the possibility of integrating it into my powerpoint presentation that is ready to go forward. As far as the classroom, I am jealous of the teachers that are able to utilize these new and exciting features in their classrooms! I have learned so much thus far in this class and am excited to utilize them elsewhere in the school!